Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Am I the only one who thinks the Windows Phone UI is INCREDIBLY ugly?

Originally Posted by pibbur2012
No. We're at least two.

I was very unimpressed with it - and still have things I don't like - until I actually USED it for a significant time. A lot depends on how you use your phone - if you are like most and social elements (text, tweet, Facebook) and some games, music and apps dominate … it is incredibly light, quick and efficient.

I bought a Samsung note at launch and it's been solid. I love the bigger screen and stylus. Only gripes would be poor battery life and it could use a faster processor. It has a 1.5ghz but doesn't feel as snappy as my old atrix phone did. Im guessing its because the atrix had an nvidia chip and a lower resolution. As far as usability goes though this is by far the best phone I've owned. Now if we could just get the ICS update.

This is getting a bit ridicules soon our smartphones will be faster than our computers…. it's all about the money. If they had improved the speed of PC's that much every release we'd be in 16 cores and 4 GHZ as the standard…..

Toff

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
TIf they had improved the speed of PC's that much every release we'd be in 16 cores and 4 GHZ as the standard…..

Um … they DID. What is happening is with shrinks and efficient pipelines they are bringing more power to smaller packages.

BUT … just like the most powerful laptop lags the most powerful desktop, so does the most powerful tablet lag the laptop, and the smartphone lags the tablet.

Also, the 'core myth' is like the 'megahertz myth' - it was shown last year how many dual-core processors at higher clocks were slower than a single core like in the HTC Titan, and this year we are seeing dual cores faster than quad cores. Also, since Android is the least efficient mobile OS (proven, not opinion - the price of 'options'), and the apps almost universally use battery and processor wasting ads and geo-tracking to sell your info, it NEEDS the power …

DArtagnan

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Please provide both proof and an objective definition of "efficient mobile OS".

*ding*ding* Ladies and gents, Round 1!!!

sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

I am curious to see the evidence too though - we're teaching a mobile dev course and our students can choose either Android or iOS…so I'd like to know if one is innately worse (well, I know Android is 'bad' in the sense that its not homogenous like Apple which controls the hardware too, but beyond that).

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Please provide both proof and an objective definition of "efficient mobile OS".

Efficiency as in the number of CPU cycles and resident memory needed to accomplish a task. A great example is the scrolling, in which the heavy use of Javascript for user interfaces on Android - bytecode will ALWAYS be slower than native compiled code. Always. Period.

What I am NOT talking about is the subjective 'user experience'. I personally love Android and use it as my main phone. BTW … the Galaxy S2 is growing on me in spite of the quirks remaining … but I still would choose the Droid 4 ten times out of ten

Originally Posted by txa1265
Um … they DID. What is happening is with shrinks and efficient pipelines they are bringing more power to smaller packages.

BUT … just like the most powerful laptop lags the most powerful desktop, so does the most powerful tablet lag the laptop, and the smartphone lags the tablet.

Also, the 'core myth' is like the 'megahertz myth' - it was shown last year how many dual-core processors at higher clocks were slower than a single core like in the HTC Titan, and this year we are seeing dual cores faster than quad cores. Also, since Android is the least efficient mobile OS (proven, not opinion - the price of 'options'), and the apps almost universally use battery and processor wasting ads and geo-tracking to sell your info, it NEEDS the power …

You mean they went from one core 500 MHZ, to 4 cores 1.4 GHZ in 3 years?

As far as the myth goes, it has taken forever in the PC market to make efficient use of multiple CPU's and they are still not doing it.

Originally Posted by txa1265
Efficiency as in the number of CPU cycles and resident memory needed to accomplish a task. A great example is the scrolling, in which the heavy use of Javascript for user interfaces on Android - bytecode will ALWAYS be slower than native compiled code. Always. Period.

What I am NOT talking about is the subjective 'user experience'. I personally love Android and use it as my main phone. BTW … the Galaxy S2 is growing on me in spite of the quirks remaining … but I still would choose the Droid 4 ten times out of ten

What use is a specific efficiency test if the "user experience" is so different?

For the record, I think scrolling is pretty great on my HTC Sensation - and I would put it equal to my iPod Touch. The default browser is somewhat too sensitive though, but that's hardly about poor efficiency.

As for the "phone experience" - my immediate impression is that Android is a lot more flexible and powerful than the iPhone - but somewhat less accessible and idiot-proof.

DArtagnan

imo battery life of the current smart phones is ridiculously low. They should stop upgrading the cpu/gpu and focus on battery first (at least one week of occasional texting and calling is a must for me…).

My last phone lasted a week on battery, now it is barely 3 days for my shiny smart-phone (after careful tweaking). Current smartphones don't even last a day.

Originally Posted by ilm
My last phone lasted a week on battery, now it is barely 3 days for my shiny smart-phone (after careful tweaking). Current smartphones don't even last a day.

Nonsense. My iPhone 4 can last three days easily with your "occasional texting and calling" scenario. It's all the extra stuff that drains the battery. The screen drains in a lot. 3G, 3D graphics, CPU intensive stuff, GPS, etc. If I disable all the modern fancy stuff, standby time is a week easy. Heavy use and gaming? Less than a day indeed.